What is interdisciplinarity?

Relying on expert knowledge to ensure quality outcomes

Interdisciplinarity is a special type of collaboration between individuals with disparate skills and knowledge with the aim of integrating these into an outcome that is enhanced by the range of skills and knowledge involved, and which cannot be easily dissembled (Morrison 2014).

Learning to undertake interdisciplinary work is about students learning and practising a specialised set of skills for collaborating across disparate subject languages and backgrounds. It does not mean students learning the content of other subjects. Indeed, doing so can actually work against reaching good interdisciplinary outcomes (Cooke et al. 2013). Done well, interdisciplinary collaboration can create innovative, creative, and important new knowledge, or even fields of knowledge (Hollingshead et al. 2010).

There are many reasons for you to incorporate interdisciplinarity into your teaching which will positively benefit your students.